Helloween Day Nine: Event Horizon

Event Horizon came out in 1997. I believe I saw it on a best-of list on the Internet, but I can’t recall where. I watched it for free on Netflix streaming. The plot: Dr. Weir – played by a twitchy Sam Neill – develops a warp drive. Anyone who’s watched Star Trek knows what a warp drive is, but nobody seems to know how it works. Simply put, a warp drive creates a black hole that rips a hole in the space-time continuum, allowing a ship to instantly travel infinite distances. If you say, gee that sounds ominous, you might be right.

The warp drive is housed in the Event Horizon, a space ship shaped like a cross where the doors have teeth. The fabled warp drive itself resembles a medieval torture device. The Event Horizon disappeared without a trace, and returned seven years later. A rescue ship is sent out, led by Captain Miller and his crew. The rescue crew finds floating body parts and blood all over the walls. When gravity is restored, the bodies crash to the floor, smashing into pieces like glass. When one of the crewmen decides to stick his hand into the warp drive (don’t ask…) suddenly the rescuers need rescuing.

Stranded on The Event Horizon, the crew starts seeing visions of dead lovers and friends. It could be too much carbon monoxide…or maybe it’s something else. The ship’s logs start out normally, and end in scenes that look like one of the Marquis de Sade’s parties. So where did the Event Horizon vanish to? I’ll give you a hint: it’s a four-letter word, and the last two letters are l-l.

There are lots of jump scares in Event Horizon. There’s also plenty of blood and gore. According to Wikipedia, this movie bombed when it came out. That’s probably because it mixes two genres, space travel and slasher movie, whose audiences don’t mix. I myself found Event Horizon to be quite entertaining, so there’s that. The movie’s derivative, but so is every other movie that comes out nowadays. Think Hellraiser in outer space and you’ll get the idea. Recommended.